PMiller's DM Workshop Series

DM Workshop #10: Dungeon Crawls

DM Workshop #10: Dungeon Crawls

This topic can be the bane of many a PbP game. There is nothing like repeated posts of "I will move down the hallway to the next door to listen and look for traps." Every game can have one, not just D&D. Many a published adventure for D&D has them, but they are also expected to be played face to face around a table where you can accelerate things much easier, too.

With that in mind, I think it is a art to figure out how to get through them in PbP, while keeping interest up.

Determine what you want your players to get out of the dungeon itself. If they need to explore everything, but there are several empty areas and a few traps to keep them cautious it can take a long, tedious time. But the main point of playing is to have fun. Spending days RL moving from one corner to the next as the map is slowly revealed is not fun. The DM cannot expect the players to role-play meaningfully with nothing to react to either.

So, if the point for the dungeon is to find a few rooms with monsters in them and a few traps, then everything else is just dead time in between. There needs to be a way to accelerate things, yet preserving the obstacles and surprises. This is the art of managing a dungeon crawl.

Some things to consider that can help:
1. If there is a natural leader of the group, let them make executive decisions so there isn't a debate at every intersection. You can even establish this policy OOC. Or perhaps the rogue who is leading the way looking for traps is designated to make those calls.

2. Streamline trap searching. This is usually what is keeping the DM from just moving the scene along to the next room as there needs to be a chance to look for them rather than stumble into them. Any experienced player group will automatically do this if they think there is any chance. You can establish a Standard Operating Procedure for it and then operate with it in effect.

It is easy to use taking 20 on Search or Perception as they explore, but sometimes there are time constraints that make it impractical (for example, the wizard's Mage Armor spell only lasts and hour). Usually at lower levels taking 10 is too low to find the expected DC of traps too. Best thing is to establish an effective Take 15 or something in that ballpark instead of just rolling dice. Since there is no consequences for failure, you can keep rolling until you beat a certain DC regardless.

However, I just have my players do this: "Search (+7) until beat DC22" Essentially the DM rolls the Search checks when necessary. And, it is only necessary when the DC of the secret door or trap is higher than the DC they set for their searching (DC24 for example). But, since they are not Taking a 15, the DM needs to roll to see if the dice roll to beat DC22 is able to beat the higher DC. So they might get lucky and find that harder trap anyway before they walk right into it thinking there is no trap.

3. Consider providing them a map to help with exploration. This could even be completely OOC knowledge if you can trust your players with that. But, you can give it too them for an IC reason instead. Provide them a crude "treasure map" that gives the basic layout to allow them to provide more general courses of actions to streamline the exploration.

4. Make sure every significant DM update leaves something for the players to react to. If the hallway continues along with some turns but no intersections or doors, don't stop in the middle unless there is a good reason. Better to just move them all the way until they reach the next intersection or whatever. The post OOC to tell them why and if they had an action they wanted to to do, let them retroactively do it. As usual, continual OOC communication can go along way.

5. When there are lots of rooms that are not empty, but don't contain much of importance (like treasure, traps, or encounters) then find ways to group multiple locations together in DM updates. I ran a group through a 15 room lighthouse that had no monsters, traps, and very little treasure, but they needed to go through it for plot reasons and there where things to see. I ended up advancing them level by level (5 floors) instead of room by room, assuming the lead characters would step forward and look into the next open doorway to make sure it was empty of monsters.

Thanks, PM. Looks like some helpful tips for MapTools, which is definitely a weak point for me.

As a resource for quickie adventures, I'll throw 5 Room Dungeons | Roleplaying Tips out there.

Also, http://davesmapper.com/ for random maps. You'll want the smaller sizes, though.

IronWolf said:

In carrying with some advice themed posts, here is a series I ran on my blog on successful PbP gaming. The first three articles are geared for the GM and provide advice for pacing, narrative and props. The final is advice for the PbP player. Might be useful some folks:

The Iron Tavern - Play-by-Post Advice

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This is good stuff from IronWolf. Some points are also in my workshop posts above, but there is other things not addressed either. Definitely worth reading.

General PbP IC Posting Advice

General PbP IC Posting Advice:

Some tips to keep in mind for PbP:

1. I look at it like this: every IC post is like a snapshot of time from a scene of a TV show. Even if your character is doing nothing important, he/she is doing something. Just describe it. No one stands around silent and statuesque all of the time.

People are social, look at all of the people that cannot help writing comments and replying to forum messages with something to say. So why is it so hard to imagine what one's character would say at any given moment? It kills me that some people cannot post at least some action and a piece of dialog every IC post.

2. The point that I think many people miss is that they feel role-playing is mostly about what your character says. I will try to quickly give an example for what someone could be doing with Grog, a strong and silent type character that is an all too common choice.

Grog follows the conversation between the gruff man and the chatterbox half-elven slip of a girl, glancing at each in turn. Finally he rolls his eyes as they continue to bicker like brother and sister once again without signs of stopping.

Some days it is entertaining, yet other days it is a distraction. But right now, they have work to do. He grunts out, "Enuff. Let's move." To emphasize his impatience, he squeezes his right hand and the knuckles crack.

He grasps his weapon tighter and rolls his shoulders, slightly flexing his muscles in anticipation as moves into position to descend the stairs.

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3. Not posting does NOT mean your character is standing around with nothing to say. Not posting is not participating or playing at all. People that do that are actually negatively impacting the game. A DM should either avoid them as players or boot them out if they don't change.

4. The opposite side of people posting are the ones that do not post much description of what their character does, but thinks good role-playing is based on how much their character says. They hold a conversation posting paragraphs of dialog without even considering the other characters might reply or react to the first few sentences. I call this monologuing, not good role-playing. The DM's NPCs are no different, they should not do this either.

5. Some players fail to post any non-dialog at all in a post. This is an amateurish and lazy habit. Every IC post should start with the character's name and be written as a sentence at least. If a character is always talking TO someone or replying to someone. If they are not, then they are "replies to no one in particular" at least, right?

Note #12: Screening Recruits at the Beginning

Screening Recruits at the Beginning

Most DMs are looking to find those players they can rely on to stick around and who will make the game enjoyable with their writing and interaction with others. Often it is the player, not their character concept, that is more important. Any player you meet for the first time can be one of those that will enjoy role-playing with you for years, or they could disappear after a few weeks. Sadly, statistics have most new people disappearing within 1-3 months, maybe 10% or less last more than 6 months.

So in getting started, what can you do to get people interested while waiting for the game to really start and find out who will stick around?

You can designate a pre-game IC thread for the applicants to strut their abilities and actually prove themselves. Combined with a some other character generation requirements like descriptions/appearances, personalities, backgrounds, strengths/weaknesses, etc... each applicant will have to invest thought and creativity way beyond making a character sheet.

You designate the Location as a DM-free Sandbox. You might even provide the layout and various locations with the area of the sandbox. Or, if the boundaries are well defined, let the players run with it and make it all up.

You give them the basic guidance and initial setting information to let them move their characters around and interact with the other players they encounter. Then you, as DM, just sit back and read. If anyone needs an NPC, they treat them as props, but they should be focused on interacting with each other instead.

The advantages for are great:
1. You get to see how players will work together.
2. You get to see how frequently they post.
3. You get to see if they can write and format their posts.
4. You get to see which players can write a decent application, but cannot actually role-play
5. Those players that flake out on you generally do so in the beginning. Now that will happen before the game starts
6. If you let those applicants who don't make it continue the free role-playing after selections, you have a replacement pool of players/characters available as well.
7. The players get to test drive their character and enjoy themselves while the wait.

This does mean you will have a lot more to read than just applications. But, in the end, you will still have to sit down and decide the players you want and in this process your job might be easier than you think.

You will also get more players to tryout even after the initial push for recruiting, realizing they have a chance since applications without role-playing are not going to be considered.

There are a few downsides to a pre-game IC thread:
1. More players means more chaos, and even some decent players cannot handle it.
2. In two weeks you could get 200-300 posts on a big site.
3. Without good structure or defined space, some people are just lost on what to do.
4. On a small site, the exercise is not going to screen people out if you don't get more applicants than the number of players you are looking for.

Initiative said:

2. Then on the losing side, check the individual rolls. If any rolls beat all of the winning side's rolls then they (and only they) get to act first in Round 1 and then they go again when their losing side goes. So that Rogue with Improved Initiative helps his side win, but if they lose yet he still beats the other side individually, he gets to go first.

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Looking for a clarification on the group initiative rules: someone on the losing side beats all the rolls on the other side and gets 'to act first in Round 1'. What actions are they allowed? Is it a full round worth of actions, both standard and move? Or is it a single standard action?

It's a full round if they beat the monsters in initiative. You have to separate out the surprise from the initiative.

The terminology is a little confusing, because there's a bit of fudging that goes on prior to all the initiatives lining up. So what is traditionally referred to as "the first round" in PbP gaming is usually "the end of the first round and the beginning of the second round" in normal PnP gaming. The tough part is sorting out the junk that happens in the first half of the PnP round.

The way I do it is this: Surprise Rounds are done as normal (i.e. Perception rolls). Then the monsters start every PbP round by definition. However, players that win initiative (either as part of the group or on their own) get to act in "Round Zero." It's a different way of defining rounds, but players get the same number of actions as PnP relative to the monsters.

That is essentially correct as Systole describes it.

Thanks, both of you.

DM Workshop #13: Providing ACs and HPs in Combat

DM Workshop #13: Providing ACs and HPs in Combat

When I started PbP DMing, I was keeping thinking that players enjoyed the mystery of not knowing ACs and HPs of their enemies and kept the information secret, just like in tabletop. At the time, other more experience DMs were providing that information, but I did not switch over.

Then after DMing for a year, I talked with several of my players and we realized that from a meta-game point of view it really did not change any decisions in combat if they knew the information. So the whole point of keeping the secrets was sorta moot. Besides, once they knew the monster most players can look up the stats to know what they are faced with anyway if they wanted. Nature of PbP is a DM and players have plenty of time to prepare if they need it.

However, if they have that information they know if they hit and/or kill AND they do not hold up the game to wait on a DM update. That is a BIG plus in PbP. I had to really emphasize that point. :mrgreen:

Additionally, the players can actually write their own combat results into their posts as well, saves DM work on their updates. Then the DM focuses on updating his notes from the players' results, then writes the bad guys actions only. As a PbP writer (player and DM) this is as important as game-play itself.

With the slow (almost glacial pace of PbP) combat can really drag a game down. Anything that makes it move faster without losing something critical in the process is a good idea.